Hello! I’m Robyn, 29, from Peterlee in County Durham.
My clients suspect I have raging ADHD, however i’m not diagnosed!
My music taste is chronic but my humour is iconic.
My previous jobs include: customer services- gas, elec, water, bin collections, mobile phones, cloud storage, electric distributor, wifi, contracts and pay as you go. Retail in a clothes shop. Coroners officer. Farm hand and working on livery yards. Charity work.
I’ve lived in Sunderland, Peterlee, Bolton (is it Manchester? I say yes, others say no), Athens (Greece) and Guildford (3days but it still counts)
I’m a plus sized girly and have been forever! And probably will always be! I want to inspire self confidence and happiness at any size and ability. Just because we’re chunky doesn’t mean we can’t have fair access to beauty treatments! Whether it be for health or vanity reasons, we should all feel comfortable, big, small, tall, short!
I’m a part of the LGBTQ community so your sexuality/identity etc has absolutely no impact on your appointment, you’re safe here! You can use whichever pronouns you feel comfortable with. We all have bodies, what’s in your pants is none of my concern, but if you want it hairless you can count on me to grab the wax pot! The only issue i’ll ever have is hair being too short, I can not wax something that doesn’t exist!
I ADORE animals, in fact in the salon you’ll find the manager, called Sir Clarence Kristoff and he is a Dumbo eared Betta fish. He’s pretty cool and I think he knows his name, either that or I just hope he does far too much that I now believe he does.
I also own a beautiful 12year old German shepherd called Poppy and 4 cats. 2 of which are rescued from a farm as feral kittens. Very cute, very evil! Winifred, Mavis, Ethel and Tyrion.
If you’re wondering why I started my own salon, i’m finally about to tell you! 3 main reasons.
Number 1: a post on a facebook group called plus size girl gang, where I read a post from women who wanted to get waxed but had fears about the beds being too small, creaky and damn right scary! But also the esthetician being small and thin, and often the word beautiful being used to which people didn’t feel comfortable baring their own bodies to a person they couldn’t relate to. Which albeit i’m not judgemental in anyway shape or form, I understand as a bigger person with cellulite, stretch marks, scars, bumps, rolls, pigmentation you name it, i’ve got it! I also, do not feel comfortable due to my own self confidence. But if I saw someone, who looked similar to myself i’d naturally feel a bit more comfortable. It’s almost like our brains imagine someone smaller than ourselves can’t imagine a bigger body. It’s wild, of course they can! And they probably don’t care about anything other than doing a good job!
Number 2: A bad experience, although the actual appointment was great, the lady was lovely at face value. It was a lip filler appointment, my first ever lip filler! I had no clue what to expect! I went to the salon, and was greeted by a wooden bed. Or as I say, a wallpaper pasting table. Still to this day i’m unsure who was more fearful, the bed, the lady or myself. I’ve never used the word small to define a single thing about myself, i’m big and bold. And with that, i’m heavy! (I’m strong and fat, so if you need something moving, i’m your girl) however to lie on a little wooden table, terrifying. There was no other option, so i went ahead and lay on the “bed” with fear in my eyes and finally, filler in my lips. I came out alive and in tact, and so was the table! *drum rolllllll* later that evening I was greeted by the biggest black bruise on my lip i’d ever seen, so my thoughts immediately went to vascular occlusion. I went to contact my aesthetics lady to discover I had been blocked by both her whatsapp and business socials so I was unable to contact her or receive aftercare advice I needed which was a real shame. (Luckily another practitioner checked me over and all was fine!)
I’ve experienced the usual small chairs nipping thighs and coming out with bruises, but I consider that normal, i’m not asking for anything extravagant. I understand i’m on the larger side and in some cases it can’t quite be accessible, it happens. But, I did realise I’d ignited a spark within myself to help others who feel the same. If I could just make one corner of this world a little nicer, offering treatments for both vanity and health reasons then the world would be a nicer place to be.
Currently, i have one small salon based in Hartlepool (TS24 7HH) but I hope to expand, I guess i’m just unsure as to how I do this currently! But it is definitely on the cards!
Finally, my third reason: mobility! I embarrassingly had a fall in March 2023 which changed my life. I’ve always been big, or bigger than big haha! But always fully mobile, always out walking for miles, semi fit but fat if you will. Being bigger than most never deterred me from doing anything anyone else did, in summer I basically live in the sea swimming around and having fun. My big body has climbed a mountain, i’m not saying I was fit and fast, but i’ve always done anything anyone else could. Except for running, a jog from one lamppost to the next sometimes, but that’s it! I’d had horses most of my life and worked on farms mucking out 12+ horses, lugging around hay bales, huge rubber mats and having huge difficult horses to handle if their owners were timid, go on then, i’ll do it. Again not athlete fit, but happily able. Until I had my fall. A simple little slip, that didn’t hurt anything bar my pride, until i went to get up and my leg had no power whatsoever. 12 weeks of rest and tramadol, physio etc nothing improved. My mobility reduced rapidly to the point I couldn’t stand for longer than a minute without being in unbearable pain with my hip and back. Finally 5months later I got an xray to see what was wrong as I wasn’t healing from my suspected torn ligaments. It was only osteoarthritis in both hips and back, so all of the resting i’d done to repair had quite certainly done the exact opposite. Constantly being told off at work for my timings because I couldn’t stay sat or stood for any period of time, or popping to the loo/using a break was all adding up and getting me in disciplinary situations which then took a huge toll on my mental health. I felt like my whole world had crumbled around me. The things i once adored I was no longer able to do never mind enjoy. Upon figuring out what job I could then go into with my new found limitations and rock bottom mental health I felt stuck in a massive rut! Until i discovered waxing, the ability to sit and stand, move around, being my own boss and starting off slowly to see if I could handle it. Determination, lots of help and support proved this was the perfect move. Not only have I got my life back, became social, my mental health is fantastic I now also am the proud owner of a successful business that promotes happiness, health, confidence and wellbeing of other people like me.
For me, my business is everything to getting my life back and i’m forever grateful.
To others, my business is a safe space to get treatments just as you are, growing confidence, being able to relax and feeling good in yourself regardless of your size, ailments, ability, confidence, neurodivergence, sexuality, identity and so on.
The Butterfly Lounge Waxing 